When we mentioned to Rachel, our hostess at Woodville House, that we were going to South Wales for some days, she seemed mildly incredulous (she often had a rather bemused and/or dumbfounded expression regarding things we were thinking of doing). She did suggest tghree places to eat out there which, of course, we never did, but I’ll record them here for the record:
- The Gryphon, near Brecon
- The Walnut Tree, “of course,” though with the note that it’s very expensive.
- The Castle Hotel in Hereford (which is where she was from, which might explain some of the incredulity), near the cathedral.
Maybe next trip.
In the meantime, no joy for Doyce on the Palm front. The fine travel adapter kit he’d found the day before had done nothing to recharge his Palm, which charging circuitry had presumably been zorched by the various plugs tried previously. Nor would it boot up, even while plugged in. While this allowed him to consider what to do about it when he got home (hmmmm … Tungsten …) it was a serious journaling problem for him. I expressed due sympathy, whilst knocking on wood frequently myself every time I plugged something in.
Our first stop that morning was the TKTS kiosk at Leicester Square (“Lester”) to pick up tickets for Les Misérables at the Palace Theatre that night — Doyce’s birthday indulgence. There were any number of other ticket shops there, all touting themselves as the One, True, Official Place to Buy Cheap Tickets, but the TKTS place seems to be the Real Thing. At the very least, the tickets were good, which, I hear, is sometimes a problem at some other places. “Good” as in “these are tickets that are actually valid for the show.”
We also passed by the Lovecraft Sex Shop, which, I am sure, seemed a clever title when someone thought of it, but which only gave everyone in the party the wiggins.
We wandered off at that point to Covent Garden (originally the Convent Garden of Westminster Abbey), where shopping occurred, both in the “real” shops (a birthday CD of 30s music for Doyce’s Living Pulp game), the hay market stalls (a very welcome sweatshirt for myself, some fun amber earrings for Margie), and in the every-popular London Transport Museum gift shop, where anything that is available with any of the logos, names, or typeface of the Underground can be had. A must-see.
Covent Garden in the chill, damp morning, was nearly deserted. It seemed very sad and depressing, though I’ve seen it thronging with tourists.
On the way back, we stopped at an Italian place, Bella Pasta, for lunch. Good pasta, spicy sauce, altogether yummy. We noted that they had a deal for money off dinner if you had tickets for a show. We made plans …
Doyce had, by this time, been rendered Palmless, started a paper journal, which he occasionally (whenever a pause permitted) wrote at length in. It was a subject of much general amusement.
We headed off then across-town to the Tower of London. It’s a must-see for tourists, and it’s a lot of fun. We did a Yeoman Warder tour, which is helpful, had time to see the Crown Jewels in their Wellington Barracks home, hit the gift shop, then rushed through the White Tower itself. It was getting late by this time, and things were beginning to close in a phased approach (the White Tower and other buildings, then the grounds, then the shops). It was also getting late if we wanted to get back to the B&B before going to the show.
It was also as close as we got to rain on the trip, a cold and blustery drizzle that battered at us as we walked back to the Underground.
Margie was still hurting, so when we headed back to the B&B to change clothes and clean up before the show, she camped out at Vic Stn, and met us on the way back. We went by Bella Pizza, but found that the table that was set for us had a smoker by it. It was decided that was right out for us, so we regrouped on the street.
Fortunately, just across from there, was a Wagamama, a noodle place chain in London. Excellent, excellent ramen and related goodies, big servings, good value.
Of Les Mis, I will say only …
- I’m glad I’ve seen it.
- The stage gimmicks were both effective and distracting, the latter probably to the good, since it’s a music- and spectacle-heavy show, vs. having much of a plot to it.
- Good cast, good songs, and I’ll probably have to pick up the sound track.
Our London time was drawing to a close. Things we contemplated for Wales at that point: a walk from one of my books between Tintern Abbey and Chepstow Castle; Caerphilly Castle; craft shopping in Cardiff; an excursion out to St David; a side trip down to Somerset; a side trip to Bath.
Heh. The closer we got to any of those, the less successful things were …
UPDATE: For pictures related to this post, go here.
UPDATE: For Doyce’s rendition of this day’s events, go here and here.
I always loved the “freak-out-the-B&B-owner” phase of the day.
Case in point.
After the group and I weighed to cost of train tickets to cost of car rental, we decided to rent a car. This must be an odd idea to folks in the UK. We were in the Edinburgh to Oxford swing. A nice drive for those of us who have lived and grown up in the western US (were every other good sized city is at least 9 hours away), but for those in the UK this seems to be a two day train trip. The next morning, the MENSA couple that ran the B&B we stayed in Woodstock, were aghast at the fact that we had driven from Edinburgh, The short amount of time we had taken (including a stop and walk along a section of Hadrian’s wall), and that this was no great feat for us.
Mr. MENSA went and got his atlas out and started calculate the distances between places in sections of the western States and appalled that they’re really was no such thing as mass transit. As we where leaving “crazy Americans” were mentioned at least once.
Have Doyce burn you a copy of the London cast version of Les Mis.
Very good!
So Dave, as a Father, what did you think of the last song?
I grew up in LA, where we measure distances by elapsed time, not miles. Traveling an hour or two to go to something is SOP, which makes the trip from London to Cardiff (200 miles and change) a walk in the park.
I’ll probably buy the CD. I save my piracy for things I can’t get otherwise.